Sunday, July 07, 2013

This
is my first time to see a travel expo that the one being market here are digital
tools and digital marketing techniques for travelers and travel operators. The
Travel Facilitators Market Asia piloted their 1st event last weekend in Crowne
Plaza Galeria and it was attended by travel operators, tourism students,
travelers and companies that are under the tourism and travel
industry.

Thanks to Raffy of Pinoytravelblog.com, ANR Travel and the
organizers of the event (Monique and Macky) for putting up a new travel expo
event that will guide our travel operators on how to go digital and how they can
take the advantage marketing their services to the traveling
netizens.
The event is free for everyone, and open to anyone who wants to
do networking to these travel operators and or get first hand information on the
latest travel deals and offerings. The event raffled off lots of overnight stay
in hotels, trip to the beach and also plane tickets, lucky guests who completed
the coupon won a travel package for a trip outside the country.

I got
lucky during the panel talks, and I won a Google Android Tshirt, I just got it
for free when I volunteered to ask question to the Googler speakers on
stage.

Also, I provided here some photo coverage and also digital tools
that can be use to power up the digital marketing of travel operators in the
Philippines –shared by SEO Hacker, Sun Cellular, Google Apps and Beds
Online.

Me
and Enzo went there for the afternoon session, we missed the morning session ,
but it was okay for the afternoon session, here we are greeted by a flash of our
names on the screen ahahahah.. nice work Raffy!

We arrived during lunch time, so you can see here that there
are less people at around 1pm, but some people in the booth are busy
accommodating incoming guest and inquiries for travel. Spotted are Cebu Pacific,
2GO and Phil’s Best drink.

Standees
of Zoomanity Group is spotted also, it’s a standee for a free photo op for
guest. I forgot to have a photo here haaha.

ohhhh
PTB booth!!

Spotted are travel operators and the booth of Google
Apps.

88DB booth offering web developing service and pictured here
is my freebie drink of the day from Phil’s Best.

Eldar
the wizard and princess of Enchanted Kingdom visited the event and here’s Raffy
having a photo op with the mascot and the princess haahahaa. I just captured a
not so good shot.. sayang! will replace this photo next time with a better
pic.. hey Raffy and Enzo… penge pics!

Mr.
Ibarra Gutierrez of Computer World Magazine opens the floor from some word about
tech and travel

And here are the digital tools and techniques for
travel operators, this will help them get more travel clients

Digital tools for travel operators

1.
SEO and digital marketing
Sean Patrick Si, the CEO of SEO Hacker
gave a basic talk and introduction about SEO and digital marketing, his company
can provide these services to power up the travel operator’s website and with
the use of rightful keywords and SEO techniques, the website can be spotted
easily thru search online or by Google and it will bring to the rightful
searcher who are looking for content about travel or searching for travel
packages.

2.
Google Apps
The world of Google is expanding, from being a search
engine, email service provider to OS and up to browser, they finally brought
more services for the needs of humans online. The speaker from Singularity who
reps. for Google here in the country shared to us the power of Google
Apps.

I’m amazed that Google Docs can be operated even offline, you can
manage your files offline, even slide presentations are already being done in
Google Docs (which is now called Google Drive). Everything sits in a cloud that
you can go private with it or connect a document file to your co worker and edit
it together inside the cloud.

The speaker told us that many companies in
the Philippines and also institutions are now transferring to Google Apps, I
think this will help them acquire a FREE application rather than spend more
Pesos in buying original software – (ouch..Microsoft butt hurts) but that’s the
reality today…we want a free software and also less cost for our
company.

Here
are a list of companies and schools who are now using Google Apps, take note
also that the seal of our President is included, we got tips that they are now
going Google docs while at work.

3.
Sun Cellular’s Message CastI love this service! I’ve been searching
for a SMS blast services and this might work very well to travel operators who
want to inform their clients that there’s an ongoing promo or special rates and
information can be sent via SMS. I ‘ve tried this kind of service before, with
another telco but their UI sucks…its so primitive.. But when I saw a UI sample
of Message Cast (via this presentation) I started to fall in love.

For
those who will inquire or apply this service, you need to have a proper business
document to support your application, just go to any Sun Cellular service store
near you.

For
the average of internet users…hmmm.. mine is above 18.6 hours per month
hahahaa.

4.
Sun Cellular’s Track and Trace service
Here’s another service from
Sun Cellular, the Track and Trace service will send signal message to your
laptop or mobile and it can trace a certain person or object via GPS, with the
help of the GPS device and mobile internet provided by Sun Cellular, you can now
monitor your tour vehicle, or a person who carries the device.

Business
owners will no longer worry a thing when they know that the vehicle or person is
following the right route to their destination.

Here’s
a sample UI of the Track and Trace app in your laptop

5.
Beds Online
Their website http://www.bedsonline.com provides full
service to travel operators only. The company is a wholesaler online for travel
agencies, They got so many travel packages that can be offered and this is for
the B2B system only. I’m not a travel agent, but I think that their contractor
rates are much lower to be offered to a travel operator.

So that’s my
report for the day.. Congratulations to Travel Facilitators Market Asia for
their 1st event, Hoping for more expo in the coming months or year.
Visit their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/TFMAsia